It’s Christmas evening and I can’t help but share a little of the cheer I’m feeling about this forecast. It is giving me goosebumps and shivers, but in a good nervous anticipation kind of way.

BARREN ISLANDS AND KAMISHAK BAY WATERS
945 PM AKST THU DEC 25 2008

...STORM WARNING THROUGH FRIDAY NIGHT...
...HEAVY FREEZING SPRAY WARNING THROUGH FRIDAY NIGHT...
.TONIGHT...WEST OF THE BARREN ISLANDS...NW WIND 55 KT. SEAS 8 FT
BUILDING TO 15 FT AFTER MIDNIGHT. HEAVY FREEZING SPRAY. EAST OF
THE BARREN ISLANDS...NW WIND 35 KT INCREASING TO 55 KT AFTER
MIDNIGHT. SEAS 18 FT. GUSTS TO 70 KT AFTER MIDNIGHT. HEAVY FREEZING
SPRAY.
.FRI...NW WIND 55 KT. SEAS 24 FT. GUSTS TO 70 KT. HEAVY FREEZING
SPRAY.
.FRI NIGHT...NW WIND 50 KT. SEAS 24 FT. GUSTS TO 65 KT IN THE
EVENING. HEAVY FREEZING SPRAY.
.SAT...NW WIND 45 KT. SEAS 17 FT.
.SAT NIGHT...NW WIND 35 KT. SEAS 11 FT.
.SUN THROUGH TUE...N WIND 30 KT. SEAS 9 FT.

There is a Homer surf forecast if I’ve ever seen one. It looks like we have a chance at decent wind conditions on the Homer beaches as well. Though I won’t be expecting clean lines with offshore breezes, it’s not predicting the straight onshore gales we’ve seen lately.

Gart Curtis runs towards some gnarly winter storm surf in Alaska.

BARREN ISLANDS AND KAMISHAK BAY WATERS
400 PM AKST SAT NOV 29 2008

...STORM WARNING THROUGH SUNDAY...
...HEAVY FREEZING SPRAY WARNING THROUGH SUNDAY NIGHT...
.TONIGHT...W WIND 50 KT. SEAS 16 FT. HEAVY FREEZING SPRAY.
.SUN...NW WIND 50 KT. SEAS 16 FT. HEAVY FREEZING SPRAY.
.SUN NIGHT...NW WIND 40 KT DIMINISHING TO 25 KT AFTER MIDNIGHT. SEAS
14 FT. HEAVY FREEZING SPRAY.

We had some fun storm surf in Homer, Alaska today. Air temps were around 25F and it was blowing roughly 25mph onshore. That was all just fine and I was having a great surf until around 4pm when we started losing daylight fast the wind picked up even more and little icy precipitation started falling. The problem was the flying ice crystals were getting blown into our eyes making it painful to look offshore. Let me just say it wasn’t a good day to not be paying close attention to where you were at in the lineup.

According to the forecast something juicy is brewing up for tomorrow. Hopefully we won’t have so much wind locally.

I shot a bunch of photos today, but haven’t edited (or even downloaded) them yet. Stay tuned. The shot above is from January 2007 when the conditions were much like today.

NWS Marine Weather can be seen here